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[Strategy] When UPSC bomb hits the rumor

market, What should you do?

Study-Plans
RBI (Prelims)RBI
(Written)KAS
(Kashmir)ACIOCAT
(IIM)CPF (Asst.
Commandant)SPIPA
(Gujarat Only)

CSAT (IAS
Prelims)

1. Discussions in the meeting

Age reduction
Work experience = Attitude problem
Reduce Time lag of Exam
Mains papers with objective questions
Lengthier Interview
Summery of the article
2. MY opinion on this Rumor-Bomb
Why cant UPSC change things?
Sadistic pleasure of rumor mongering
The widow remarriage
Yet another UPSC bomb hits the rumor market.
Im copy pasting an article from Times of India- Dont
panic while reading it.

Starting the Copy Paste

UPSC convened a meeting on 10-04-2012 and sought
suggestions to change the pattern for civil services
examinations.

Chief Participants
Director general (DG) of National Academy of
Direct Taxes (NADT), which trains Indian Revenue
Service (IRS) officers
Representatives from National Police Academy,
Hyderabad which trains IPS officers
Representatives from Lal Bahadur National
Academy of Administration, which trains IAS
officers.

Discussions in the meeting

Age reduction
Heads of various bureaucrat training academies
wanted a cut in the age limit for entering the
country's premier government services.
The general suggestion was to reduce the age of
candidates entering the civil services. An upper age
limit of 26 was thought to be enough, as people do
not take up employment before that age, said
NADT DG DS Saxena who was present in meeting.
The idea is to ensure that it is the first job for all
those entering the civil services, as such candidates
can be more enthusiastic and disciplined. The
current upper age limit is 30 years, and higher for
reserved category.

Work experience = Attitude

problem
There were also suggestions to prefer candidates
without prior job experience, especially in
government sector, as well as unmarried persons
because t he married have t heir own problems.
(lolz)
Although meeting participants agreed that there
could be no official bar on work-ex / married people
from appearing in the exam.
At present, majority of those joining the service
have already worked somewhere earlier. They often
tend to have an attitudinal problem, which hampers
their training. Freshers are easy to mould, said
Saxena, adding that the NADT too was of similar
opinion.

Reduce Time lag of Exam

The gathering also mooted reduction of the time
lag for clearing the civil services exam.
Right Now, after advertisements inviting
applications are published in January or February,
prelims are conducted in May-June, followed by
mains in November and finally the interview by April.
The current period is over a year, which often
deprives many brilliant but economically backward
candidates from taking the exam. (Totally agree on
this one.)

Mains papers with objective

Mains papers with objective

questions
It is easy to evaluate prelim papers, in which
questions are of objective nature, but valuating
papers for mains is time consuming. So if mains
papers have a considerable section of objective
questions, unlike a totally descriptive format now,
the evaluation can be faster, said Saxena, citing a
suggestion.
This will reduce the gap between two
examinations. So, with reduced age limit on one
hand and quicker results, candidates will have to
take exams at shorter intervals. This is also
expected to help filter out candidates who
otherwise may not have the natural ability but crack
tests due to repeated attempts.

Lengthier Interview
Another key suggestion was to increase time slot
for interview to at least an hour-and-a-half from 25
minutes at present, as it may help in judging the
person's character properly.

Summery of the article

Government departments want new bureaucrats to be
young, unmarried and preferably without job experience
to infuse young blood into the system. Those involved in
training the babus feel that candidates with prior job
experience are often hard to mould.

Ending the Copy-Paste.

My opinion
First and foremost: there is no need t o panicafter
reading above article of Times of India, because
most of those suggestions are unlikely to be
implemented.
No matter what UPSC chairman, his coterie,
coaching thugs of delhi or orkut trolls say, There
will no change in Age or At t empt Limit , in t he
near f ut ure.

Why cant UPSC change things?

Constitution says that UPSC is independent and
autonomous body. Government cannot remove the
UPSC chairman or members as per its whims.

So, if UPSC chairman is so reformist why hasnt

he implemented these suggestions already?
Because UPSC is independent for conducting the
exam. But not for deciding minimum eligibility. UPSC
is a recruit ing agency, not a personnel agency.

What does that mean?

Consider this case:
After you complete a 2 years course in IMA
Dehradun, you get appointed as an officer in the
Army.
But to get admission in IMA, youve appear in
Combined Defense service exam (CDS)
CDS exam is conducted by UPSC. But there is a
rule: only unmarriedmales can apply for IMA + Very
strict physical checkup: height, chest-expansion,
eye-sight etc.
Million dollar Question: Did UPSC chairman alone
made the rule about marital status or physical
fitnessfor IMA admission? No he didnt.
Ministry of Defense sends a file to UPSC: We
want 100 gentlemen for IMA,Dehradun. They must
be unmarried, must have high physical fitness, sharp
mind, general awareness, decision making skills and
good command over English language. You conduct
the exam and send us the merit list before end of this
year.
And UPSC conducts the CDS exam accordingly.
You pay, service conditions and minimum eligibility is
decided by the concerned personnel departments,
and not by UPSC alone. UPSC has to consult the
concerned ministries before initiating a major
change in any recruitment exam.

For Civil service exam

Since 2007, I had been hearing rumor every year
that UPSC will remove optional subjects from
preliminary exam, and introduce an aptitude paper
because various Committees formed by Government
and UPSC have been recommending for this
It did not happen in 2008, not in 2009, not in 2010
but finally in 2011, and that too only after Mohan
cleared the file.
Recall the news reports that appeared before the
introduction of CSAT in 2011: UPSC had sent the
proposal file of change in exam pattern to ministry

of personnel. After PM signed on the file, CSAT was

implemented.

But Why did PM Sign the file?

Because Ministry of Personnel falls under domain
of PM. Of course there is a minister of state to
handle minor matters and day to day affairs of
personnel ministry, but major decisions are taken by
PM himself.

Moral of the story

Age, attempt, marital status or work-ex criteria
are to be decided by the Government. UPSC can
only send reform-proposal to the Government. If PM
clears the proposal, only then UPSC can go ahead
and implement it.
But we all know, that no Government has the
guts to reduce age or attempt limit, because itll
have severe vote-bank implications, particularly in
the Gangetic plains.
At most what can happen in short term future:
UPSC may increase the length of interview to half
hour, UPSC may implement few objective questions
in mains exam. If youre a serious and hardworking
player, such minor changes shouldnt bother you at
all.

Sadistic pleasure of rumor

mongering
After Every two months, UPSC bomb hits the
rumor market. Some rumors are exaggeration of
newspaper reports. Some rumors are totally
baseless and fictional stories. There are three types
of players in this rumor-market.
Player

Whatll he
say

Coaching
thug

Yes UPSC
is likely to
introduce
these
things in 23 years. So
time is
running out
for you!

What is his agenda

To instill fear in
your mind and
then to cash
that fear.
If youve workex/ married/
above 25 years,

for you!

Orkut
trolls

Yes UPSC
is going to
introduce
these
things from
next year.

you will definitely

panic after
hearing him and
decide to take
coaching, before
the reform takes
place.

He gets
sadistic pleasure
by creating panic
in your mind.
To strengthen
his argument, He
will selectively
highlight only a
few sentences
from a
newspaper
report or
Committee
recommendation.
His logic is
simple: if 1000
candidates panic
after reading my
post, itll affect
their studyconcentration,
hence less
competition for
me!

Dukhi
aatmaa
(sad
soul)

Guys
check this
out: UPSC
is gonna
change the
examrules! I got
the news
from my
friend,
orkut, Delhi
or
newspaper.
What are
we gonna

It is his nature
to get panicked
immediately for
minor matters,
inform everyone
around him and
seek their
opinions.
He basically
whines and
worries about
future too much
instead of

we gonna
do now??

studying for the

exam.
Dont be in
company of such
dukhi aatma.
They spread
their negative
vibes on you and
affect your study
concentration.

In short, rumor mongering is part of UPSC game. But how

should you handle it? Before answering that question,
allow me to digress from the main subject of this article.

The widow remarriage

Once upon a time our society was extremely
orthodox: child marriage was permitted but widow
remarriage wasnt permitted. So a widow had to
pay for her past mistake of getting married in
childhood, despite the fact that child-marriage
wasnt her own decision.
Now consider following
To become an officer in Army, Navy or Airforce,
youve to pass CDS or NDA exam but
They give extra marks for NCC certificates;
They reject you for slightest falling in
medical checkup, even if youve decent score
in written exam.
Army: a candidate with more than +3.5D
eye-glass number is not eligible.
Navy and Airforce: candidate must not have
eye-glasses of any number.
+ Laser eye surgery not allowed.
To get admission in IIMs, youve to pass CAT
Exam but
apart from CAT score, most of them have
special admission rating system:
You get marks according to your score in
10thand 12thboard exams.
If youre a non-engineer or female, you get
extra-marks.
So youll find people with 99 percentile in
CAT, not getting interview calls from IIM-

Ahmedabad, because of these things.

Some people dont get selected due to above rules, they
file PIL in high courts and supreme court. Cases go on for
years, nothing comes in their favor.
Your opinion on above rules of Army or IIMs will depend
on which boat youre sailing into. So, Im not interested in
discussing the pros and cons of such policies, what Im
trying to say is

These people are basically widows.

Theyve to pay for their past mistake: being
born in a family where height DNA is low,
having eye-glasses, getting admission in a
state education board where no one gets
above 80%, getting admission an
engineering college, not doing extracurricular activities and so on. Even if it
wasnt their own conscious decision,
theyve to pay for it.

If youre unlucky, A day might come, when youll become

a widow for UPSC. When, where and how exactly,
nobody knows, nobody can predict. Only an official UPSC
notification, press release or RTI reply can confirm or
deny such rumors. But UPSC too gets sadistic pleasure,
by keeping things uncertain and not dispelling the rumors
by giving official press release. And there is nothing you
can do about it.
When will UPSC remove optional subjects from
mains exam or
When will Sachin retire?
There is no exact answer to these questions.
So, Study hard and have backup plans ready. Dont panic
after every article that comes in newspaper or every
rumor that spreads from coaching factories of Delhi or
bogus communities of Orkut.
Do your best and Leave the rest in the hands of God.
April 18th, 2012 | Category: Tips
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